Minute 8: “The Matrix has you…”

Transcript

Transcribed automatically from the audio, and imperfect for it — names and punchlines suffer worst. Useful for finding a moment, not for quoting one.

0:00Welcome back to the Matrix Minute, a podcast where we discuss the first film one minute at a time, just because we love this film so much! I'm Phil, and I would not have made such stupid hacking mistakes. I'm Jake, and I guess I would press maybe Ctrl-Alt-Delete. I'm Tim, and I would probably unplug the computer because it's possessed by Satan himself. Well yeah, it's ransomware, isn't it? This minute is minute number... eight! Right? No. Please open the door, number eight. Please open the door to number eight. You are correct, it's number eight. This is minute eight of the Matrix, and I'll give you a little lowdown on what's going on, just so you don't get lost. So let's go.

0:41Neo's adventures with his computer time. A mysterious line of text tells him, Wake up, Neo. And he wakes up. He looks at it. It's all black. His search is gone. And then it says, The Matrix has you. And he's like, what? And then it says, follow the white rabbit. And he goes, huh? And then it says, you've got 1,000 free minutes on AOL. And then it goes, knock, knock, Neo. And he's the prince of interior. But just that door knocks! Ho-ho! He goes, who could it be? Who is it? It's Joy. Ah, Joy. Oh, okay. And that's about it. That's the minute. That's the minute. What an action-packed... Ooh, man.

1:22It's super action-packed. So, wonderful, beautiful, 90-degree angle rotation shot. I love that stuff. This is the sort of stuff that, again, influenced me with visual language and how I like presenting shots sometimes. But I never did because I never had the tech to do that. Or the smarts to get the camera up there and rotate it like that. But I love it. Let's look at Neo's room. Let's talk about the keyboard. Exactly. I've already paused on that and I want to see what he has. He has a couple of... He has two monitors, it looks like. Yes, he does. And a really wonky keyboard. It's like a little wave. It's a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro. Did any of you guys ever own a keyboard like this? No.

2:02We're not. He is very aware of carpool. Carpool? Carpool tunnel? The tunnels. He's got to have ergonomics on his side. Well, it's a Microsoft... I said Natural Keyboard Pro. Right. Is it true? Does it actually help? I don't know. I never tried it. I don't know. I haven't seen those recently. Some people, yeah. It's natural to have your hands on the table a little bit to the side instead of flat. Right. Yeah. So, Neo has a really dirty, ugly room. It's one room apartment somewhere. He's got some bad cable management in the back. I don't know if you can see. Littered with all kinds of junk. With lots of hacker stuff. He has the classic phone. Yeah, the classic phone. That's what every hacker is. No, it has a keypad. Yeah. I'm saying that it's the classic sort of powerpuff girls. On the left, he has another keyboard.

2:44It's not ergonomic, so he cast it away. Just chuck that away. He's got a really ugly printer. Can I tell you guys real quick? Just look really hard. On the left, I think, you'll see the Captain Crunch. The Captain Crunch. The cereal. Do you see it? He's eating cereal. He's eating cereal. He didn't finish his cereal. Oh, I see. He's too busy hacking. I think we all can relate to eating cereal while being on the computer. While hacking. While hacking. Can we also then discuss when Neo wakes up? I think we've covered the room. I always imagine that his room is so filthy that there's cockroaches in the corner.

3:25That's what it's meant to look like, yeah. It reminds me of the Fight Club house. Yeah, there's a nasty grimy. The movie came out in the same year. A lot of the sort of grimy old hotels kind of aesthetics and those hard colors was quite popular. It was. I still like it, but I can understand why people don't want to do that anymore. They'd rather prefer the turquoise and the orange. I don't think turquoise and the orange is still in the game. Or the deep blues. No, my friend. Today, what it is, is crushed blacks. Crushed blacks. It's saturation. It's desaturated. Everything's desaturated. None of them are better than the other.

4:06Okay. The thing turns on and it's just black screen and it says, wake up Neo. What thing? The computer. Yes, but this is another iconic thing that people remember from The Matrix. That's right. So what do you think would be the feeling that you would have when you're looking at such a monitor and just goes, wake up Neo? Because I remember people were like, that's so clever. That's so cool. Then he wakes up. If I was a hacker man, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, like if you hack the system, the system will hack you. Like when would you be like, you know? Ransomware. Yeah, but I think maybe Neo would be, if he's a good hacker, I think he would understand. Firewall. Yeah, he would know how to defend himself. Well, he tries feebly. Well, let's talk about that.

4:47Let's talk about the feeble attempts. Control X. He press Control X. What is that? I know like Command Q is on the Mac. He's cutting something. Yeah, what is he cutting? He has like an antivirus that he used to cut? My antivirus told me to press Control X. That's what I'm doing. But you have to admit though, escape as feeble attempt as it is. It looks great on screen. Escape, I love that. But yeah, but listen, in this scene, Trinity is communicating to him. I was like, it's Morpheus, I forgot. I thought it was Morpheus too. Oh, was it Morpheus? I don't know. I thought it was Morpheus when I was watching. But still, imagine on this ship, on the Nebuchadnezzar, one of them is just like, he, he, he, he. Yeah, he's typing away. Imagine Morpheus hunched over at the console and just going.

5:28No, like he writes the first messages. He's like, Captain Crunch has you. No, that's not good. Delete, delete, delete, delete. Morpheus isn't typing. He's dictating. Of course. He's the captain. Oh, yes, yes, yes. He's sitting next to Tank. Tank now. No, not Tank. To Mouse. He's like the, Mouse type this in for Neo. No, no, no, it's Tank. It's Tank. Oh, Tank? Fine. Tank? Type in, Neo, wake up. No, no, no, wait, wait. Type in, wake up! Exclamation point. No, no. How about, wake up, Neo? I'm so nervous, I can't. Three dots. I don't know how to. What is his name again? Neil? Neil. No, Neil. We'll have stories about Neil. Wake up, Thomas. No, no, no, no. His hacker name is not.

6:08You have to call him by his hacker name. Hacker names. His real name. Hey guys, since we're here, what do you guys think of the hacker names? I think it's awesome. I think it's cool. It definitely makes him cooler, no matter what. No, no, no, but I think the idea is cool because I think it plays into the... Action genre. No, no, no. It plays into the idea that... Do you notice that the whole reason people take on their aliases in the real world is because they're losing and they're dropping their former identity in the Matrix world. So the Matrix world was false, right? It was a program. It was sold to them and they didn't even want it. And so when they escaped the Matrix, their real selves were their aliases, their hacker selves.

6:52And that's why I like the hacker names. Do they call each other by their aliases in the real world as well? Oh yeah. That's what I'm saying. That's their only sort of new identity is that they... Because they chose those names themselves. Oh, so there's the real and the Andersons and the other names. Do we know what Trinity or Morpheus' names are? Yeah, I was going to say, do we know their names? I don't know. Morpheus, Lawrence Fishburne on the set said that he was probably a barber in his previous life. He was a barber? Okay, so we'll call him... He was a barber. I always like to imagine that most of the people are... His name is Daryl. Well, here's a question. Jeremiah, Daryl. Daryl Morpheus. No, Daryl Morpheus. I would say Jeremiah, Wisconsin is Morpheus' name.

7:33Wow. And Trinity's name is Sheila. Sheila? Sheila? She's not Sheila. She's not from Australia? His name would be like Christy Mortensen. Christy Mortensen. Yeah. And Lawrence... Lawrence. Lawrence of Arabia. No. And Morpheus would be like, you know... Lawrence Olivier? Patrick Johnson, probably. Daryl. Patrick Johnson. That sounds so white. Daryl. Well, maybe he was growing up in a white family. He was adopted. I don't know. We're going to call you Patrick. Or what was he? So, I wanted to say... We're talking about the aliases. Well, I was going to say... No, I was going to say... I think that... My always thought was that the people who are freed and who end up working on the ships in

8:18the Matrix were former hackers. Most of them, yeah. That makes sense. That's their curiosity. That's why they're going into this... They're the ones who are just thinking about and talking about... What is this Matrix? Because there's a rumor in the Matrix itself. Yeah, that's true. Where people... Like in the chat room that I dictated to you in the last episode. Most of those people are probably some guys that know a thing or two about computers. Or they've heard about it. And also the people who have already been freed are... What about that little kid from Animatrix? He wasn't a hacker. He was just like believing. I'm just saying most of them. No, I'm saying... No. I was going to say the people who work on the ships now are hackers.

8:59That's what I'm saying. I don't... I don't think the rest of the people... Probably... I don't think they wouldn't need be like... Because like look at Switch or Apoc or any other characters that we'll discover later on. They're not doing any hacking. I don't know. They're just like running around. They're like... How do you know, Tim? We haven't seen them doing hacking. But generally it's mostly the people who are already doubting their existence in the Matrix in their lives before they were freed. They could be anyone. They could be just like something more. I know. But mostly it's people... It seems like it's just people who are into software. I don't know. Like... Just because of the... Of the... You know... Aliases? No, not because of the aliases. Well, I don't know. Because of the similarities between the actual simulation that's going on and the simulation

9:41that they are accustomed to with software. I don't know. They just don't strike me as hacker types. All right. Well, then I don't know. But follow the white rabbi, you know? That's right, yeah. What if... What if she didn't put... What if they didn't put that T? What if we made a typo? Alice in Wonderland. There's a lot of Wonderland references. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because they wrote follow the white rabbi. And another thing about this scene, this minute, is that Jake and I made a parody of this once. What was the parody? Yeah, we did. Yeah, you and... Just to test out lighting, where Jacob, you were a lazy hacker, and you got a message from Trinity, and you called her. Yep. And she called you, and you're like, I'm gonna order pizza.

10:22Yeah. It's pretty funny. We should... I don't know. Post it somewhere or something. Anyway, that's minute number... Number eight, I think. Yeah, I think it was a short one. Neo's best friend comes to visit him. Oh, yeah, Neo's best buddy. And we're good to meet him. Oh, wait, wait. I got something from the script. That's right. Oh, yes. You want to hear more about the script? Yes. All right, well... Neo finishes his cereal, and is about to disconnect when an anonymous message slices into the screen in the middle of the chat room. And the screen says, do you want to know what the Matrix is, Neo? Neo is frozen when he reads his name. And the screen goes, Superastic. You remember Superastic? No. Yeah, on the chat room. The one in the chat room, guys?

11:02Oh, yeah. Who said that? Jack Khan says, who's Neo? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And Gibson says, this is a private board. If you want to know, follow the White Rabbit. That's it? And then Neo goes, what the hell? And then screen says, Timex goes, someone is hacking the hackers! And then FOS4 says, it's Morpheus! Exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark. And then Jack Khan says, identify yourself. And then the screen just goes, knock, knock, Neo. And then a chill runs down his spine. And when someone knocks on his door, he almost jumps out of his chair. He looks at the door, then back at the computer. But the message is gone. He shakes his head, not completely sure what happened.

11:44Again, someone knocks. Cautiously, Neo approaches the door. And voice goes, hey, Tommy boy, you in there? Recognizing the voice, he relaxes and opens it. Anthony, who lives down the hall, is standing outside with a group of friends. And Neo's like, what do you want, Anthony? But that's the next minute. Oh, man. I just want someone to film this version of the movie. Just fat Val Kilmer. Just fat Val Kilmer on the chat board. That would be great. Eating Captain Crunch. Well, there you go. Captain Crunch, the Captain Crunch series saga has finished. And we know that there is some cereal on Neo's desk. And Neo's remnants of the script survived. The Matrix has him, and he's scared.

12:26Did it say the Matrix has you? Yeah. And why do I remember these things? Knock, knock, Neo. It's Choi. What will happen in the next episode? Stay tuned for Minute Number 9. This Matrix Channel, this Matrix Minute. I'm Phil. I'm Jake. And with us is... I'm Tim. Follow us on Twitter. Phil Dragush. At Jake Dragush. At Tim O'Mayerski. Ah, goodbye. Knock, knock. Afternoon.